When you own a huge facility in a modest-sized town best known for submarines, you can be forgiven for throwing your weight around, yes?

Pfizer is trying to find out. The drugmaker, which has its R&D nerve center situated in the sleepy town of Groton, Connecticut, is threatening the town fathers and mothers with unspecified cutbacks in civic support if a planned property-tax hike goes through. The Groton town council wants Pfizer to pay another $3.2 million as part of three-year, phased-in reassessment.

Toni Hoover, senior vp and director of Pfizer’s Groton/New London labs, told the council Tuesday night that the drugmaker is sympathetic to the revaluation will have on homeowners, some of whom are Pfizer employees. And Pfizer doesn’t object to paying its fair share of taxes. Right now, that amounts to more than $30 million in real estate and personal property taxes.

But the additional tax burden cannot be easily absorbed.

“What is paid to Groton in taxes will come out of some other account, and we are concerned this reduction will hurt this community,” Hoover said, noting that Pfizer has already cut jobs and closed plants. “Pfizer remains committed to being an active part of the Groton community, but these commitments, too, are necessarily being reviewed on a case-by-case basis.”

Hoover apologized for making her comments three weeks after the council had already made its decision, saying the drugmaker has been “preoccupied with its business transformation efforts.” In the future, she asked that the council not “tilt the playing field” by creating a benefit for residential taxpayers at the expense of commercial taxpayers.

One council member is already quaking. John Scott wants to continue the debate and fears Pfizer’s reaction was a veiled threat that could jeopardize jobs, or grants and contributions.

“I would hate to anger them,” he said.

Yes, there’s a lot of cheap real estate going begging in Michigan right now. It wouldn’t take much for Groton to look like Ann Arbor East, would it?

Source: The Day

Hat tip to the Bill of Rights[tags]Groton, Pfizer[/tags]